Vidya’s remodeled kitchen: 3 surprising reasons why you are the best designer for your space!

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After three years of subconsciously staring at 18,712,789,765 beautifully dressed up images of kitchens, gardens and spotless living rooms, I’ve come to realise one thing: when it comes to doing/re-doing your own space, you tend to draw ideas from real homes than the picture-perfect ones in the glossies.

That’s perhaps the reason why real home tours are so popular among blogs. Because, that’s as close as you can get, to real homes. I was fortunate enough to shoot Vidya’s remodeled kitchen recently. A few caveats before I begin:

* the aesthetic brilliance does not come out in the pictures as I’m still trying to befriend my camera (yes, slightly Physics (ally) challenged with the aperture/focal length etc)

* the objective is on the functionality and not the dressing up. So, you would be peeking more into the insides of the drawers than the embellishments outside.

* we didn’t have time to dress up the space as she was traveling that evening for a long while

A little background:

From my conversations with Vidya, I’ve come to understand that cooking and baking are like nirvana for her. So, to say, baking is her passion would be an understatement. She treats every corner of her home indulgently. A lot of research went into what appliance to pick, where to procure the granite /tiles from, what layout would work, where to place the dishwasher etc.

The kitchen is a square shaped kitchen with an adjoining utility (wash area) separated by a wall. I don’t have the before pictures, but will try and post a similar layout.

Why the remodeling project?

Vidya wanted to combine the utility space into the kitchen to accommodate a dishwasher, washing machine and a new refrigerator, oven and an island in the center of the kitchen.

The cabinets were in good condition even after ten years so she re-used most of it, just changed the position in some cases to create room for the bigger refrigerator and oven.

View of the kitchen from the dining room. To the far right, is the wash area and dishwasher/washing machine.

A closer view of the backsplash..

Scratching your head why this piece of granite is on display? Well, I took this picture to illustrate that you can plug in future leaks by choosing a joint-free granite in the corners. Of course, this would mean accurate dimensions/drawings of the space to the cm. ( using any CAD software like AutoCAD) that you can deliver to your granite store. The stone can then be cut to the specified dimensions and fit on location.

A six-inch narrow pullout to house cleaning supplies.

all the four sides of the island are used as storage: cylinders on one end, vessels and other cutlery for regular cooking on one end, hob on the top.

A big thanks to Vidya for opening the doors of her sacrosanct space – kitchen, and let me shoot for this post.

From the dozen mails I get every week, I know many of you are in the process of designing your first homes, or renovating parts of it. If it is a small part of your home, I believe you can design it yourself. Here are my reasons (let me know if you disagree :)):

You use the space day in day out, who best to know what the pain areas are? Jot them down.

Maybe there’s nothing wrong with the space, but it’s just a case of familiarity breeds contempt. So, what would you like to change? Jot it down again.

Are you on a tight budget? Use blogs, Pinterest to your advantage to get an idea of the best places to procure materials at the best prices. It’s not a financial plan, so experiment and you’ll rejoice the fruits of your efforts.

I encourage you to create your own idea book weeks before undertaking any renovation. Plan,plan,plan. Later, you can sort through them to see what fits best for your space within budget and time constraints. I’m focused on increasing the space efficiency of my kitchen. So, before you close your browser window, hop onto my Organizing & Storage – Kitchens board on Pinterest. Sill in the nascent stages, it will start growing soon.